Ahmadinejad likely loser in Iranian vote
DUBAI – Iranians voted on Friday in a run-off parliamentary election in which allies of hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hoped to complete victory over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Khamenei’s expected majority is likely to mean a tougher final year for Ahmadinejad in his second and last term.
With reformists mostly sidelined and opposition leaders under house arrest, the vote is a test of the popularity of Khamenei’s clerical establishment rather than an opportunity for fundamental change in the way the Islamic Republic is run.
Sixty-five of parliament’s 290 seats are being contested after Khamenei loyalists led the first round in March. More than 50 per cent of seats have already been filled by new members, including a large number of independents, so the Iranian Majles is undergoing an extensive facelift.
Among the five candidates who have already secured seats in Tehran, Gholam-ali Haddad Adel, a key ally of Khamenei and father-inlaw to his son, Mojtaba, won most votes.
“We have to wait for the factions
“The next Parliament will not give Ahmadinejad an easy ride.”
ANALYST MOHAMMAD MARANDI
to be formed before we can see what happened. But whatever happens the next Parliament will not give him (Ahmadinejad) an easy ride. I doubt he’ll be very happy,” said analyst Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University.
The waters are muddied by the fact that many successful candidates appeared on the lists of both the pro-khamenei Principlist Front and the equally hardline, proAhmadinejad Resistance Front, making it difficult to fathom who can count more on the lawmaker in question.
The political persuasion of more than 70 independent candidates elected in the first is also unknown.
“Many of them are from small provinces and are not known politically. But some have been supported by Ahmadinejad during the campaign and so they will very likely tend to support him,” said Sadeq Zibakalam, an Iranian professor of political science.
Ahmadinejad has inflicted hardship on Iranians, critics say, through soaring inflation caused in part by slashing food and fuel subsidies.
Iran is also under ever-tightening economic sanctions.